Musings of a Modern-Day Da Vinci
by nightfury150
Summary: Series of oneshots, drabbles and series-es about the Avengers. Contains team fluff and angst alike. Mostly Tony-whump. Stony, Clintasha. Ongoing. Rated T for paranoia. I'm taking requests. The first chapter is short and not my best, so please feel free to just push past it. . . (MOVED TO AO3, SEE CHAPTER 3 FOR DETAILS. 'MUSINGS' CHANGED TO 'COFFEE-INDUCED RAMBLINGS')
1. Public Performance

**This one is short and terrible and I don't care.**

 **Actually, I do. It just seemed longer on my phone. And better.**

 **Anyway, this is set in an AU in which none of the Avengers revealed their secret identities. So, in this, Tony's still famous for being, uh. . . Tony, but he's not famous for being Iron Man. Similarly, Steve can walk around without being mobbing by fangirls. Win!**

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The people running the street act were very energetic, Steve decided. He watched one of them scale a twenty-foot-high pole with wide eyes, the seemingly impossible activity reminding him of his army days.

"We need some volunteers!" The leader of the acrobats cheered, standing tall on top of his pole with both arms outstretched as if waiting for a hug.

All whooping and general clamour from the crowd died down immediately in the wake of his statement, but the man's grin didn't falter - or at least, Steve didn't think it did, since the guy was twenty feet in the air and all.

"None?" He said, sounding far too cheerful about it for the supersoldier's liking. "All right then, I suppose I'll have to pick!"

Everyone started to attempt to make themselves less pickable (for want of a better word). Steve saw girls letting their hair down, releasing them from any ornate hairstyles that made them stand out. The blond tried to shrink, bending his knees to make himself shorter.

"You there!" The leader yelled, looking and pointing directly at Steve. "The blond one with the muscles and the white shirt!"

Steve cursed mentally.

"Yes, yes, it's all very nerve-wracking, I'm sure," the ringmaster smiled, "so why don't we give you another volunteer to be pant-wettingly terrified with? Start making your way up onto the stage and I'll pick another."

He began to survey the crowds again, and, grumbling to himself, Steve began to walk onstage. He heard another poor person being picked out as he strode to stand underneath the pole the ringmaster was standing on.

"Hey, there!" The man yelped suddenly, drawing Steve's attention back to what he was shouting. The supersoldier's neck began to ache from looking directly upwards. "Don't leave!"

Steve grinned mentally, silently sending out encouraging thought waves toward the crowd.

"Guards!" The acrobat leader shouted, taking far too much enjoyment out of acting like a Disney villain. "After him!"

Barely even ten minutes of wishing luck towards the guy running away later, the "guards" were back, dragging the poor man with them. He had brown hair, matching eyes and a small smirk despite being caught.

He locked eyes with Steve and flapped a hand in what was either a poor attempt at a wave, a sloppy salute or a mild hand spasm. Steve took it as the first and smiled back politely, attempting to stop himself from blushing at the fact that the ringmaster had managed to choose someone who was basically the personified definition of a hot mess.

"There he is!" The acrobatic ringleader cheered. "Why hello there, my friend! I see you're excited for your street circus experience?"

"Oh, immensely." The man said, his voice only subtly suggesting that he was being sarcastic. "I can't wait."

"Something we both have in common!" The man atop the pole laughed. "Come, come, bring him up on stage. It's time our two volunteers met, no?"

The guy sighed deeply as he was shoved onstage.

"I guess we're both unwilling test subjects, then," the dark-haired man said dryly, strolling over. "Well, we might as well go down knowing each other's names. I'm Tony." He stuck one hand out.

"Steve," Steve said, grinning and accepting the hand.

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**I hope you enjoyed! I might continue it at a later date but for now that's pretty much it.**


	2. Tattoos

**This one was amazing to write and a pain to upload. I hate my phone. With a passion. Anyway, this fic is basically a character study. Watch out for Tony's tattoos in later chapters ;)**

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He only has a couple. A handful, really.

There's a small red dragon blowing golden fire on his back. There's a feather behind his ear. There's an arc-reactor-blue Avengers' 'A' (he's not sure if he regrets that one or not) on the heel of his foot. There's a thin-lined, empty circle on his hip.

The tattoos are simple and small, and they all mean something.

The dragon reminds Tony of both his pre Iron Man and post Iron Man selves. In Chinese symbolism, the dragon stands for emperor: this is his pre Iron Man self - an emperor, full of self-importance and cocky and seeing himself as royalty (not that he saw it that way at the time). In other cultures it symbolises wisdom, courage, and strength: this is his post Iron Man self, if Tony can get away with saying that without sounding narcissistic. The fire shows Iron Man's determination and Tony Stark the weapons manufacturer's firepower.

The feather shows Tony's love for flying and his respect for the air. In ancient times the feather was used to appease the sky gods (sue him if he didn't want to be thrown out of the sky by an angry god at any point - and, after Thor and Loki, he wouldn't put it past the universe to throw some random sky god into his life). In Christianity it stands for virtue, which just adds a hilarious irony to the whole thing.

The Avengers' 'A' has a few different meanings. One is obvious - it's their ilogo/i, for the love of everything valuable, and one less so. There's a reason why he chose to have it blue, not red, and that reason is that the tattoo symbolises the Avengers' complete acceptance of Tony, warts and arc reactor and workshop binges and all. Sometimes it displays the friendship and family-like dynamic he has with the team.

The empty circle has the most meanings. It shows the world, the arc reactor, the circle of life (no singing, lions), a friendship bracelet, a lightbulb, Captain America's shield. . . give Tony a packet of felt tips and he can make anything out of it - from simple smiley faces to mind-bogglingly complicated friendship bracelets that took him over two hours and a headache to draw half of. The circle is there as a reminder to not just rely on logic all the time. The circle is there to show how things inevitably get better.

All of them have a story behind them, and Tony knows the stories off by heart.

He's 99.9999999999999% positive that the media don't know about them - and, because he is a person who actually doesn't like heavy media coverage, he keeps them well hidden.

The dragon and the circle are covered up by clothing. The 'A' is usually either being stood on or has a sock on it. The feather is hidden by his long(ish - look at Thor's!) hair.

Whenever he considers showing one some part of his head says no. He doesn't know what he's waiting for, really.

Tony got the tattoos at different times, different years, even, so he's fairly used to covering them up.

The circle was first. It was a couple of years before Afghanistan, and he was about to inherit SI.

The dragon was next. The colouring of the dragon itself and its fire was finished a couple of days before he held the demonstration of the Jericho missile.

The feather came after that, a few days after he'd finished building Mark V of the suit. A celebration, and a good luck charm, of sorts.

The 'A' was last, some time after the Battle of New York, and just after the Avengers had all been moved in for three weeks.

The tattoos weren't on his file. He didn't think SHIELD were even aware they existed. Sometimes Tony wondered where the short list of his tattoos would go - under "Personal Attributes", next to the note on his workshop binges? "Appearance", next to the note on how devilishly handsome he was? "Special Features", next to the note on his arc reactor? He'd have to ask Natasha, Clint, Coulson, Fury, Hill, or some other SHIELD employee if he wanted to know, and that would mean they knew about the tattoos.

Which, Tony decides, takes all of the fun out of hiding them.

Perhaps that's why he doesn't show the tattoos - because he gets a kick out of people being about two seconds away from spotting one of them.

The billionaire smiles softly at the mirror he's been standing in front of for twenty minutes straight without noticing - too wrapped up in his own thoughts to even look at himself more than once - and watches the circle move with his skin as he twists from side to side.

Footsteps start to enter earshot, and Tony fumbles with his top, pulling it over his head just in time for Steve to poke his head in.

The supersoldier informs him that The Dark Knight is starting and Tony informs him in turn that he'll be there in a minute. As soon as Steve leaves (sighing all the way), Tony lifts his tattooed foot off the floor and grins at the 'A' that's marked there. The blue seems to glow brighter in return, and the engineer's grin grows wider.

He puts his foot back on the floor and goes to join the other Avengers.

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 **Hope that was okay. . .see you soon :)**


	3. Author's Note (even though I hate them)

Hello all,

As you may have noticed, I've not been very active on here recently (or DeviantArt, but that's another matter entirely). This is due to a string of crazy events and developments that I never would have thought to expect/never even considered was a thing applicable to me, and while it is (mostly) my fault, I didn't even think of until yesterday. Sorry for that.

But I've decided that, since I'm so out of touch with this website (it literally took me ten minutes to remember how to post a new chapter), I'm gonna move both of my stories to ao3, or archive of our own, where my account name is chasing_the_sterek and I'm far more actively online.

So, as a result, I'm not going to be updating on here any more. I'm going to keep my account, but only for things like talking to people and having the option to leave a review if I ever read any of the fanfics on here.

Sorry,

J

PS: thanks for sticking with me for so long, and for reading and (hopefully) loving my story/stories. It's been amazing getting the positive feedback from you lot, and even if I didn't always respond I always read them.


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